SPADYN-SM · Spatiotemporal dynamics of secondary metabolism in the ocean microbiome

Microbial secondary metabolism (SM) is critical to ecological interactions because it is a source of bioactive products such as antibiotics and anti-cancer drugs. Marine microbes are prolific sources of these compounds. Until now, the prospection of biosynthetic gene clusters has primarily focused on cataloguing SM diversity by using machine learning (ML) tools, with little regard to their importance for the microbial dynamics. Microbes benefit from SM by providing a chemical language for inter-specific communication and improving environmental interaction. The dynamics and evolutionary aspects of this interaction, as well as its effects on spatiotemporal microbial dynamics, have not been studied due to a lack of suitable datasets. To elucidate this, the SPADYN-SM project aims to investigate the spatiotemporal dynamics of SM in the ocean microbiome using an innovative genome-resolved work frame to verify diversity, mutations, selection pressures, and effects on environmental variables in a collection of metagenomes from monthly marine samples collected by the host and collaborators over a 7-years period. Dr. Santos will combine his unique expertise in biochemistry, molecular biology, bioinformatics, and ML with the host's notorious experience in microbial ecology and evolution to document the fluctuation of SM in marine microbes for the first time on an unprecedented temporal scale. SPADYN-SM could lead to a better understanding of seasonal patterns of SM in marine microbes, environmental effects, and possible impacts on microbial evolution. SPADYN-SM continues to advocate for the analysis of polymorphisms at the protein structure level, which may lead to the discovery of novel drug-like compounds. This highly interdisciplinary project, with its international collaborative network and innovation, will advance the EU's research and policy strategies, such as biotechnology and microbial community modeling fields, and will boost Dr. Santos' promising carreer.